Collapsible buildings



Nov. 16, 1965 H, HElsE 3,217,448

COLLAPS IBLE BUILDINGS Filed Dec. l5, 1961 4 Shee'bS-Sheel, l

INVENTORI Hermann HEISE Nov. 16, 1965 H. HElsE 4 Sheets-Sheet 2 EHS INVENTOR:

. evmarm HTTIST Nov. 16, 1965 Filed Deo. l5, 1961 -F/G. 4.- l2

H. HEISE COLLAPSIBLE BUILDINGS 4 Sheets-Sheet 3 INVENTOR: Hemarm HTFISTT wir A ovnev Nov. 16, 1965 H. HElsE COLLAPSIBLEv BUILDINGS 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 Filed Dec. l5, 1961 INVENTOR: Hermann HUIS fomev United States atent 3,217,448 CLLAPSIBLE BUHLDINGS Hermann Heise, lm Silbertal, Hannover-Langenhagen, Germany, assigner to Clinomobil-Werk Gesellschaft mit beschraenkter Haftung, Hannover-Langenhagen,

Germany Filed Dec. 13, 1961, Ser. No. 159,973 Claims priority, application Germany, Bee. 16, 196i),

2 claims. (ci. 52-36) The present invention concerns a collapsible readily portable hospital.

In times of crises, hospitals situated in large cities can 'only be used to a limited extent. The emergency services are not usually able to cope with sudden iniiuxes as they are often inadequate as regards spa-ce and equipment.

It is necessary to have hospitals at the disposal of the civil population in areas which cannot be determined in advance at short notice and free of improvisation, that is t-o be fully operational. It is therefore necessary for collapsible hospitals in a collapsed state including the fittings to form readily conveyed pack units which are in a suitable form for storage and, at the place of use, are adapted to be rapidly and reliably erected.

A criterion is that, at least, the operating and treatment rooms have a dat horizontally disposed rigid floor insulated against cold and other weather conditions from the ground, possibly heatable and having rigid walls and roofs. The buildings have to be effectively protected against eX- cessive heat from the sun and hermetically sealed to prevent contaminated air from penetrating into the rooms, above all during operations. Moreover provision has to be made for simplifying transport of the buildings which are collapsible and for the buildings to be erected at the place of use. The structure has to be combined to form a hospital installation and this can be effected by means of special structural members, such as bridge-like fittings.

.All components must be made of light constructional methods and have considered mechanical and chemical resistance.

The comparatively large pack units can be readily carried along by army units or emergency squads by means of heavy vehicles or other means of transport to act as eld hospitals and hence to render strategy and tactics, in the event of war, independent from medically supplying the troops and/ or the population.

To form extensions it is useful to have canvas annexes to be connected with the building made of solid material, and also provided with a solid floor insulated against the cold from the ground and against the damp and to which the canvas side walls are connected simultaneously using tent supports or a tent framework. All the tent walls are conveniently constructed with double walls with air connections, thus making it also possible for the canvas tent extensions to be heated or possibly cooled. lt is advisable to make the internal tent or the internal canvas of impervious material, such as plastics foil or rubberized textile fabric.

To render possible the conveying of relatively large `pack units also by air, such as by means of helicopters, -which is necessary in areas without roads or which are traversed by rivers or lakes, it is p-ossible to surround the pack units with at steel holding or carrying straps which have eyelets for inserting load carrying hooks at the top of the pack unit. The pack units may also be placed on conveying pallets adapted to be suspended from -the underside of aircraft, which pallets when the load is put down serve other purposes, such as for supplies. It is advisable to use box-like waterproof conveying pallets which are tted with floats 'or form an unsinkable float;

` this ensures multiple use of the pallets.

ice

Since the use of collapsible buildings, which in their entirety form a hospital, should also be possible in tropical countries with a poor road system, it is necessary for the pack unit not only to be as light as possible but the individual components have to be termite-proof and non-corrosive to prevent them from suffering damage when stored in humid climates for a considerable time.

Portable buildings made by way of the light construction method and having rigid walls which, when erected at speed, cannot have any heavy bases and hence with regard to wind forces occurring have at first no anchorage in the ground, but have to be firmly anchored in the ground to counteract lateral and lifting forces. For this purpose there are used canvas annexes arranged on all sides around the building for the purpose of providing secondary rooms; they may be so connected to the Walls of the vstructure that they are able to transmit the great lateral forces. In known mannertent poles, tent frameworks, tent posts and bracing wires are used which at the same time form an anchorage in the ground for the rigid walled buildings. As a precaution however the buildings are provided on the outer walls near the ground with eyelets adapted to receive ballast containers suspended therein. When the buildings have been erected, these eyelets are used to suspend therein containers of flexible material adapted to receive sand or water as ballast weights, contributing to the stability of the buildings and adapted to local conditions. If water ballast is considered, the containers can serve at the same time as storage containers for drinking water or for supplying a Ventilating plant. The space too beneath the traversable floor may be partly used to accommodate ballast bodies.

Collapsible buildings adapted to be repeatedly erected have already been proposed, which however do not conform to the aforedescribed demands. The known collapsible buildings when having a suicient degree of heat insulation, are of considerable weight. On repeated assembly they require constantly additional substances or substitutes which however are heavy in weight and, in an emergency, are not available at the place of operation. The components of known collapsible buildings are always loaded singly on to vehicles and also unloaded singly and then again assembled.

The combination of all constructional building parts forming a building unit including the furnishings such as tables and beds to form a pack unit has not been known hitherto. It is only necessary to consider the thought that otherwise important individual components are easily forgotten. Furthermore a transport vehicle may become stuck or capsize. From a pack unit there cannot be any loss or breakage. When a transport vehicle has an accident a crane lifts the pack unit as a whole `on to a replacement vehicle. l The medical equipment is protected in the interior of the pack unit and incidentally are all perfectly accommodated.

The flat wall and ceiling structural members may be made large enough or so divided, constructed or arranged that the structural members of one or more buildings form a rectangular or cubic rigid body as a pack unit. It is thus necessary for all parts to fit at one upon the other without overlap and for the lower part forming the floor of the building to be a torsion resistant volumetrically rigid body, which is suitable to accommodate the sensitive medical equipment and instruments and also the furnishings like in a packing case.

The wall-shaped flat structural members used must have a high heat insulating coeicient, moreover it is necessary for the surface to be impact and scratch resistant. In the interest of a low capacity to absorb the heat of the sun it must be of light colour and nevertheless not require painting. Therefore panels are used having a shape retaining core of organic or inorganic heat insulating material, for example of hardenable syntheti-c resin foam. On to the at surfaces of the insulating material there are then cemented thin resistant light metal sheets having edges bent over at right angles to act as edge protectors. The sheets on the two sides however are bent over only far enough to prevent them from making contact with one another to avoid a heat bridge from being formed. The edge region free of metal is sealed off by beams of synthetic 'resin or bituminous substances to prevent thevinsulating material from being subjected either to chemical or other harmful influences, above all to prevent it from absorbing water, because fibrous insulating materials, for example, when becoming damp lose their heat insulating value. Positive and non-positive connecting members between the individual panels are designed like hinge members in the case of hingeably connected parts and so constructed that a rigid but detachable connection may be provided by means of push-on bolts which engage in suitable eyelets. These pushon bolts are connected inalienably by means of small chains to the panels and/or they are inserted when not in use into receiving openings of the panels and located therein so as to be self-locking, for example by means of a collar disc of elastic resillient plastics material, so that they can be pulled out at any time, but when the relatively large and heavy pack unit is being transported do not interfere or rattle.

The invention will be described further, by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a side elevation of a hospital installation constructed in accordance with the invention, and comprising two collapsible buildings and tent type annexes;

FIG. 2 is a plan of the installation shown in FIG. l;

FIG. 3 is a front view of the installation shown in FIG. 1;

FIGS. 4, S and 6 are perspective views of three different embodiments of floor parts;

FIG. 7 is a schematic perspective view of a supporting spindle adapted t be screwed out from the floor part;

FIG. 8 is a diagonal view of an embodiment of oor part shown in FIG. 6;

FIG. 9 is a view showing the collapsing of the upper wall portions hingedly connected to the door part;

FIG. 10 is a front view of two noor parts nested one in the other of two buildings with the wall and roof parts partly folded together and partly stacked one on the other with equipment contained therein, the whole being connected to form a pack or transportable unit;

FIG. 11 is an enlarged cross-sectional view through a plate-shaped wall or roof part produced by way of a light construction method;

FIG. 12 is an enlarged cross-sectional view through the butt joint of two wall parts having a coupling point for a power -conduit arranged in the interior of the wall; and

FIGS. 13 and 14 are cross-sections of two different tent floors open on one side.

The hospital installation shown in FIGS. 1 to 3 cornprises two collapsible rigid buildings 1 and 2 having a rectangular ground contour. Both buildings are interconnected by a tent structure 3; longitudinally of both buildings, tent annexes 4 and 5 a-re provided. The

canvases of the annexes, more especially of the roof are so connected to the walls of the two rigid buildings 1 and 2 that considerably tension forces can be transmitted. Tent pegs 6 `and bracing wires 7 of the two outer tents 4 and 5 are of relatively strong construction`so as to serve simultaneously as ground anchorage for the rigid buildings having no base.

Further tent annexes 8 and 9 are provided to produce extra rooms on the wide sides of the rigid buildings 1a and 2. These tents too are suitable for transmitting large tension forces and also act as ground anchorage for the rigid buildings l and 2, together with their tension lines 7 and tent pegs 6. A connecting tent 8a which has an internal supporting structure for the canvases is arranged between the two tent annexes 8 and 9.

The canvas rooms of the tents 4 and 5 are connected with the internal rooms of the rigid buildings 1 and 2 by door openings, thus creating a contin-uous hospital treat ment zone in which for example the rst room of the rigid building 1 serves as an anaesthetics roorn and the room of the building 2 as an operating theatre. The lateral tent annexes 8 and 9 are not connected with the buildings 1 and 2 -by means of doors; these annexes serve for the depositing of stretchers with sick or Wounded who have alrealy had attention or who still require attention. Each canvas room has a rigid plate-shaped floor 10 made of solid material and having a downwardly bent over ange (FIG. 13). The necessary plate-shaped elements are connected on the same level with the door parts of both buildings 1 and 2 by hook-like engaging members. The door part of each building 1 and 2 forms torsion and bend resistant double-walled structural element which is supported and horizontally aligned on the ground by means of supporting spindles 22 or pressing rams. The one piece door parts of the tent annexes 4 and 5 at their ends remote from the rigid buildings are additionally supported from the ground by means of supporting spindles. At the same time this prevents the hospital site from being effected by temporary flooding.

The floors of the rigid buildings each comprise a dat bend resistant box the upper surface 11 of which forms a traversable floor and the surface wall of which is disposed adjacent the ground.

Side walls 13 of the box are either extended upwardly so as to form buckle supports 14 (FIG. 4) or special buckle supports 15 comprising for example a latticework with planking panels (FIG. 5) mounted on the side walls 13 of the dat box. At least at one side, preferably one end face of the box, the buckle support is omitted, so that it is possible to utilize the space enclosed by the buckle supports by conveniently packing and unpacking items of equipment.

At the same time the buckle supports 14, 15 form the lower side walls of the rigid building. The upper side walls 16, 17 are hingeably mounted by means of hinges 18 to the upper longitudinal edges of the buckle supports 14, 15. The buckle supports differ in height by the dimension of one wall thickness, so that the downwardly folded relatively thick parts 16, 17 in a horizontal position lie flat one on the other, being suitably supported downwardly.

The roof and other parts, for example the floor parts of the tent oors 9, 1t) are placed nat on the upper side walls when hinged in a horizontal position. Tent poles 19, tent pegs 6 and rolled up convases and bracing wires 7 are inserted in the flat floor boxes which are open on one side. The side wall, which has the openings has circular or oval cut-outs 20 thus leaving a shear resistant panel (FIG. 8 and 9).

FIG. 7 shows how a supporting spindle 22 is mounted on the at floor box so as to prevent it from interfering in the non-use position. A wall 21` of heat insulating substance, consisting of plastic foam, is cut-out in the region of the spindle 22 near the corner of the room. The outer planking has an aperture through which a spindle nut 23 is accessible to a Spanner adapted to be reciprocated in the manner of a ratchet and turned, thus causing the spindle 22 with a thrust plate 24 to be displaced downwardly towards the ground. In the position of non-use the thrust plate 24 is situated in a at recess of the lower wall 12 of the at box. It is sufficient however for the thrust plates merely to lie ush against the wall 12, so that these thrust plates in the form of slides are adapted to be used when horizontally pulling away the flat boxes nesting one in the other.

In FIG. 9 there is shown the height of the furnishings, which in turn contains the clinical apparatus corresponding exactly to the inside height of the room between the upper side walls 16, 17 folded up and the traversable floor part. Lockers 25 are divided at a suitable level. The other articles such as for example tables 26 at the same time form supports for the wall assembly.

In the example shown in FIG. two slit hat box-like floor parts fit one in the other, one fioor part being somewhat larger than the other. The buckle support of the box situated underneath is higher than that of the other inner flat box. This makes it possible for the hingeable upper wall surfaces to be folded into a horizontal position so that all walls are disposed flat one upon the other. Steel fiat holding straps 27 are placed around the whole transport unit comprising for example, two buildings. On the upper end of the transport unit there is a holding eyelet 2S adapted to receive a crane hook or the load hook of a helicopter.

Each wall or roof part consists of a shape-retaining non-metal foam material having light metal sheets cemented on either side, which extend around the edge of the wall part to protect the edges, but do not make contact with one another thereby avoiding a heat bridge. The edge region 29 of the foam body which is free of metal is sealed.

Power conduits 30, 31 which may comprise steam-water or electric lines are embedded, in an insulating manner, in the foam material of the walls and ceilings; they are connected so as to be readily detachable on the inside of the room by couplings 32, for example, pressure pipes provided with union nuts or bridging cables.

It is advisable to provide at least one panel edge of two wall parts which, in the operational position, are in butt connection with one another with a non-slip sealing strip 33 made of rubberised material, which at the same time prevents accidental displacement of the two adjacent wall parts.

In FIG. 13 the tent floors are shown open at the bottom, but are of different size, so that when not in use they can be stacked so as to engage in a space saving manner one in the other. It is however also possible, as shown in FIG. 14, to telescope them in such a manner that the edges interlock thus forming a Cavity adapted to be used to pack away delicate objects.

In certain circumstances it is advisable to use conveying pallets for lifting the transport units or supplies. To avoid losses when carried by air over areas abundant with lakes, these pallets are provided with iloats, which may consist of inatable air tubes or the pallets are partly constructed with double walls enclosing cavities, thus rendering the pallets unsinkable. It is advantageous to provide the pallets having ilat bottoms with a relatively high border s0 that these, if necessary, can be used as oats.

Between the actual roof members of the rigid buildings and the ceilings or ceiling parts closing off the room and extending horizontally beneath these roof members, cavities are formed when the buildings are erected, through which the outside air may be circulated with or without the use of fans, so that ceiling parts are not directly subjected to the rays of the sun. The tent annexes and also a sucient roof overlap at the same time prevent irradiation of the building side walls. Excessive heating up of a rigid wall part having a metal surface is thereby prevented in co-operation with a Ventilating plant, which is very important in tropical and subtropical areas.

I claim:

1. A portable building package for use as an emergency hospital having tables and lockers ofthe same height, comprising an outer building structure having a rigid floor and at least two side walls xed on opposite sides of the iloor, each of said side walls comprising a section fixed to the iioor and a section hinged thereto, an inner building structure resting on the floor and between the walls of the outer building structure and comprising a rigid floor and at least two side walls fixed on opposite sides of the oor, one of said side walls comprising a shorter section fixed to the floor and of a height equal to the tables and the lockers and a longer section hinged thereto, the other of said side walls comprising a longer section iixed to the floor and a shorter section hinged thereto, the longer section of each wall being greater than the shorter section by an amount equal to the wall thickness, a plurality of tables and lockers in the fioor of the inner building structure, the longer hinged section being folded to rest on the tables and lockers, the shorter hinged section being folded to rest on the longer hinged section, the side wall sections fixed to the floor of the outer building structure being of a height greater than the distance between the floor and folded wall sections of the inner building structure, the hinged sections of the xed walls of the outer building structure being folded to lay parallel to the hinged sections of the inner building structure and defining a storage space therebetween, and paraphernalia for assembling the buildings stored in said storage space.

2. A building package 'as in claim 1 wherein the floors of the inner and outer buildings are hollow and accessible from the exterior of the building and adapted to store tents and tent annexes.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 467,423 l/1892 Merritt --5 1,551,864 9/1925 Bothwell 20--2 X 1,773,190 8/1930 Link 20-2 X 2,034,215 3/1936 Stencel 50-126 X 2,152,713 4/1939 Stewart 202 X 2,534,852 12/1950 Butts 20--2 X 2,671,158 3/1954 Rubenstein 50-268 X 2,793,067 5/1957 Couse 20-2 X 2,894,290 7/ 1959 Lundstedt 20-2 2,904,850 9/ 1959 Couset et al, 20-2 FOREIGN PATENTS 577,125 5/1958 Italy.

FRANK L. ABBOTT, Primary Examiner.

JACOB L. NACKENOFF, Examiner. 

1. A PORTABLE BUILDING PACKAGE FOR USE AS AN EMERGENCY HOSPITAL HAVING TABLES AND LOCKERS OF THE SAME HEIGHT, COMPRISING AN OUTER BUILDING STRUCTURE HAVING A RIGID FLOOR AND AT LEAST TWO SIDE WALLS FIXED ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE FLOOR, EACH OF SAID SIDE WALLS COMPRISING A SECTION FIXED TO THE FLOOR AND A SECTION HINGED THERETO, AN INNER BUILDING STRUCTURE RESTING ON THE FLOOR AND BETWEEN THE WALLS OF THE OUTER BUILDING STRUCTURE AND COMPRISING A RIGID FLOOR AND AT LEAST TWO SIDE WALLS FIXED ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE FLOOR, ONE OF SAID SIDE WALLS COMPRISING A SHORTER SECTION FIXED TO THE FLOOR AND OF A HEIGHT EQUAL TO THE TABLES AND THE LOCKERS AND A LONGER SECTION HINGED THERETO, HTHE OTHER OF SAID SIDE WALLS COMPRISING A LONGER SECTION FIXED TO THE FLOOR AND A SHORTER SECTION HINGED THERETO, THE LONGER SECTION OF EACH WALL BEING GREATER THAN THE SHORTER SECTION BY AN AMOUNT EQUAL TO THE WALL THICKNESS, A PLURALITY OF TABLES AND LOCKERS IN THE FLOOR OF THE INNER BUILDING STRUCTURE, THE LONGER HINGED SECTION BEING FOLDED TO REST ON THE TABLES AND LOCKERS, THE SHORTER HINGED SECTION BEING FOLDED TO REST ON THE LONGER HINGED SECTION, THE SIDE WALL SECTIONS FIXED TO THE FLOOR OF THE OUTER BUILDING STRUCTURE BEING OF A HEIGHT GREATER THAN THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE FLOOR AND FOLDED WALL SECTIONS OF THE INNER BUILDING STRUCTURE, THE HINGED SECTIONS OF THE FIXED WALLS OF THE OUTER BUILDING STRUCTURE BEING FOLDED TO LAY PARALLEL TO THE HINGED SECTIONS OF THE INNER BUILDING STRUCTURE AND DEFINING A STORAGE SPACE THREBETWEEN, AND PARAPHERNALIA FOR ASSEMBLING THE BUILDINGS STORED IN SAID STORAGE SPACE. 